This story was updated at 10:20 a.m. on Aug. 18. 

The abrupt closure of all coronavirus testing sites run by Montgomery County, Maryland, has left some residents and local officials frustrated and confused.

Officials announced the closure of the sites on Friday. Inspections by state and federal officials revealed that improper lab procedures by AdvaGenix, the county’s testing partner, may have jeopardized the results of more than 17,000 tests. The county advised anyone who visited a public clinic in the past two weeks to take another test elsewhere.

While Maryland ordered the Rockville-based company to notify all affected patients by this weekend, some residents immediately had concerns about the county’s testing programs and how officials plan to make up for the new shortage.

Silver Spring resident Patrick Cavanaugh says he first learned of the closures when a news article popped up in a local Reddit feed on Friday. He had received a test at the Wheaton Library clinic a week prior, preparing for a trip to visit family in Massachusetts.

Like many states, Massachusetts has an order requiring out-of-state travelers to self-quarantine for 14-days upon their arrival, or receive a negative test 72 hours before their visit. Cavanaugh, who says he expected results within three-to-five days, booked a hotel room in Massachusetts to use while he waited.

Cavanaugh says he still hadn’t received his results when he learned the all testing clinics closed on Friday.

“I’m definitely behind schedule now, as far as getting out of this hotel,” says Cavanaugh, who received a test in Massachusetts on Friday, and is awaiting his results. “I understand that issues happened with the lab, but I wish that we had gotten better notification.”

Problems at the AdvaGenix lab initially drew attention from state officials on Thursday, and the county immediately closed four different testing sites, according to NBC 4. It wouldn’t be until the following day when all public clinics closed, and Montgomery County suspended its contract with the company. According to Maryland Health Department spokesperson Charles Gischlar, “pre-analytic deficiencies” in the lab’s protocol may have compromised the results.

Dr. William G. Kearns, the CEO and chief scientific officer of AdvaGenix, disputes the investigation’s reported findings, and says the AdvaGenix tests are “safe and accurate.” In a statement sent to DCist, Kearns says that the closures and suspension of the company’s tests are the results of “regulatory issues.”

“The crux of this dispute lies in regulatory issues between FDA and other federal laboratory regulators for COVID-19 testing, not the health, safety, or substance of our testing,” Kearn’s statement reads. “We believe we have followed the FDA approval process, Maryland state guidance, all of the recommendations of the test’s manufacturer, and we have worked cooperatively with public health officials.”

Silver Spring resident Alyssa Picard says she had appointments for herself, her husband, and her son at a county-sponsored site on Thursday. She says no one in her family was symptomatic, but that they needed a test before traveling to visit Picard’s elderly parents in upstate New York.

“They were basically like, it’s cancelled for the foreseeable future,'” Picard says of the notification from the county. “Everybody is depending on this for safety and to have the economy functioning, and apparently it doesn’t really work, and they’re not really telling us anything about why.”

Picard says that she was directed to visit other testing sites in the county, but many are a CVS Pharmacy that require an individual be 18 or older.  Her son is 10 years old.

“We could be taking our kid, who could be a grenade basically, into our parents home,” Picard says. “So that’s the big concern for me.”

The county-run testing centers provided tests for free, and were designed to be an accessible option for all residents, according to Montgomery County Councilmember Hans Riemer. According to a county press release, the lab has provided 19,000 tests over the past two months.

Without the free tests, individuals going to a CVS or a doctor’s office will need to provide proof of insurance, or even pay out-of-pocket.

“My concern is that I want the county to replace that testing capacity as quickly as possible,” Riemer says. “Those tests are tests that we were really using to drive our messaging to people who may otherwise be outside the medical system, where you weren’t necessarily getting a reference from a doctor. [The tests] are a critical component to our response to keep the virus under control.”

In response to the closure, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan has vowed to provide 5,000 tests a week to the county until it secures another supplier.

The recent debacle is not the first time the county has run into testing issues over the course of the pandemic. In mid-June, an unknown number of tests from the county’s at-home testing program went missing. Weeks later, local officials raised concern that a surge in coronavirus cases would outpace the county’s testing capacity at the time.

Montgomery is the state’s most populous county. It has the second-most coronavirus cases in Maryland, behind Prince George’s County, with a total of 18,925 cases as of Saturday. It also leads the state in testing, with 193,827 residents tested according to state data.

Alyssa Picard says she is fortunate to have insurance that could cover a test at her son’s pediatrician while the closures continue. But she recognizes the risk that shuttering public sites poses to the entire community, especially those that may not be able to afford a test on their own.

Picard notes that Montgomery is among the richest counties in the country. “If we cannot get this right,” she says, “what in the world is the chances for places that don’t have that kind of tax revenue?”

This story was updated to include a statement from Dr. William G. Kearns, the CEO and Chief Scientific Officer of AdvaGenix.